How I Got a $460 Amazon Gift Card for $4

Last week I was browsing books on Amazon (but not buying since I’ve already given them enough money!) and I noticed a little box on the right side of my screen. It said, “Do you own this book? Trade it in for $24!”

Seeing that triggered a memory from several months ago, when I was going through my Amazon spending history and cringing at how much I’ve spent over the years. At the time, Amazon had recently introduced its trade-in store, where you can send in books, DVDs, and video games (they’ve since added electronics) for a set price.

I was one of those people who kept every single college textbook related to my major, thinking I’d use them all the time in my career. And in case you’re wondering, I haven’t touched any of them since I finished grad school. I wonder if I could get any money for those old textbooks, I thought.

How Amazon’s Trade-In Store Works

Amazon’s trade-in store is an awesome service. You enter the name of your textbook, compare ISBNs to make sure it’s the same edition, and add it to a running list of items to send in. Textbooks need to be in “good” condition, which means no water damage, no name written inside the front cover, and no missing pages. I pulled all my old college books off my bookshelves and started searching to see how much money I could get.

Since I’ve been out of college for 7 years, many of my books were outdated and ineligible for trade. Surprisingly, though, 22 of them were still current enough to get a decent trade-in price. I got $460 for the 22 books, or an average of about $21 each.

Once you’ve added all your trade-in items to the list on Amazon’s site, you get a prepaid shipping label and packing list to print out. The quoted prices are only good for a week, so you have to get the items shipped out within that timeframe. If for some reason the books aren’t in good enough condition to be accepted, you can ask that they be sent back to you.

I took my books to the closest UPS store – I wanted to make sure they were boxed up correctly and that the weight didn’t exceed the UPS limits. It cost $4 for the box and tape, which (for me) was worth it because I knew there wouldn’t be any problems in transit.

The box shipped out last Tuesday, and I got an email from Amazon on Friday saying my books were all accepted and my account had been credited with $460. SWEET!

Is the Trade-In Store Worth the Effort?

Personally, I LOVE the Amazon trade-in store and had a great experience. The good things:

You can go through your items quickly to find out whether or not you’ll get a good price.

Amazon pays the shipping.

You don’t have to post the items for sale and wait for a buyer/ship them separately.

Rates are comparable to other sites (for textbooks, anyway).

The gift card is credited to your account quickly.

They aren’t too strict on their definition of “good” condition.

The negatives (because there are always a few!):

You get Amazon credit instead of cash.

Some of my books were ineligible, leaving my bookshelves as overcrowded as ever.

I’m addicted and I want to send in all my other books (non-textbooks) now.

Have you ever used a service like Amazon’s trade-in store? What did you like or dislike about the experience? Any suggestions for better or easier ways to profit from unwanted stuff?

Andrea is a freelance web developer and mom trying to maintain a sense of humor in an otherwise chaotic world. She blogs in hopes of helping others avoid the same mistakes she made in the past. Join in the discussion here on So Over This, or connect on Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, or Google Plus. You can also subscribe to new posts via RSS so you never miss out!

Totally going to try this. I have a ton of books from grad school that I thought I would use in my future career… and I might have, but then my career path took a complete left turn. So now I've lugged all these books through 2 moves so far, and will probably never need most of them… but I can *always* use Amazon credit (especially since the town I just moved to doesn't have any used book stores). 🙂

interesting! I actually didn't know about the trade-in store. I only have 2 textbooks left over from grad school and none from my undergrad… and novels I sold to a used bookstore here.. but maybe those used textbooks will go for something. I was just going to put them on consignment at the bookstore at the university.

what a great idea! we held a garage sale several months ago and got rid of a few books.. all at the price of 1.00 or less ( when I had paid well over 25.00 for some of them.. I will defiantly have to check this out!

Wow this post has totally gotten my attention. I'm moving apartments this week and consequently I'm taking my books out of storage (finally!) I'm definitely going to go through them and see what I can come up with, can you buy a kindle with the gift card? I've been eyeing one for the past few weeks but it's way out of my discretionary budget.

That's awesome! I try to sell all of my old textbooks right after a class is finished so that I can get the most money back.. especially during beginning of each semester, but I'll have to go through all of my old books and see if I can trade em in. Nice!

I'm so interested in seeing I'd this works with amazon.ca. I have tons of books that I would love to pass on but would love to find an alternative to just donating to library. Thanks as usual for some great insight. Now go find us more!!

I used to do a similar thing with my textbooks selling to website when I was in college. They all seem to be out of business now. That's great that Amazon offers this service and it seems pretty easy. The downside is you could probably get more if you tried to sell them yourself. In the end I'd probably use Amazon because it would take too much time to sell them all individually.

Yep, I used to weed through all my textbooks and use a variety of services to make sure I was getting the best price before Amazon started offering their trade in service, so I was also getting checks instead of credit.

It wasn't ever a lot of money as an absolute value but since I always bought used from the cheapest stores in town whenever I could, I didn't lose a ton in the transactions at the end. It was when I sat on the books for too long so that new editions came out before I sold them that I lost a lot of money. THAT was a pain.

Now this the kind of creative stuff I like reading about! I didn't realize Amazon bought used textbooks and it sounds like they offer pretty decent prices. I think I have a couple textbooks lying around…maybe I need to check this out. Trading them into Amazon sounds way less time consuming than selling them individually – even if I might get a little extra doing it that way.

I was thinking of using a similar system on Half.com (Instant Sell) but I like Amazon way better, so thanks! I'll try this first and then move on to Half.com. I sold the super easy ones on Craigslist over the last couple of years, but I'd love to get the rest of my husband's masters' text books out of the house…

Holy moly that's awesome! I looked at Half.com's program, but I actually made more money by just selling my book. I don't save them long enough to have a mass trade-in like this (I like to sell them as soon as I'm done so there's hopefully still a market for them.) I wonder how much they'd give you for novels, though…

MY package was sent with their Amazon label – was able to track it from Sept. 4th (when I shipped) to yesterday (Sept. 29th) and it had gone to their facility. Today, they cancelled it "because it expired before it arrived". I shipped it the day the postage tag was issued — now I am out a $100 textbook I know they have and get no credit for. Worse, the tracking that was ON THEIR SITE is now unavailable for me to see because it just said cancelled. It was my only proof that it was there!